1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for hosting web-based photo-sharing websites, and more particularly to a method and system for customizing digital cameras to upload images to an entity-specific photo-sharing websites.
2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
As the popularity of digital cameras grows, the desire of digital camera users to share their images with others will also continue to grow. New digital camera owners typically try to share their images based on the paradigm of film cameras, in which images are printed on paper and then placed into a photo album. The most straightforward approach to do this with a digital camera is to connect the digital camera directly to a printer to create the prints, and then manually insert the images into a photo album. Users often find this process somewhat complicated and restrictive because standard printers can only print images in limited sizes and require particular types of paper. And even after the photo album has been assembled, the printed images are not easily shared with many people.
The best approaches to photo-sharing take advantage of the Internet. One such approach is for users to store the digital images on a PC and then send the images to others using email. Several Internet companies now offer an even more convenient approach by providing photo-sharing websites that allow users to store their images for free and to arrange the images into web-based photo albums. Once posted on a photo-sharing website, others may view the images over the Internet.
While convenient for storing digital images, getting the images to the photo-sharing websites can be challenging for users. Most commonly, users must upload their images from the digital camera to a PC using a cable or IrDA, or by inserting the camera's flash card into the PC. From the PC, the user logs onto the Internet and uploads the images to a photo-sharing website. After uploading the images, the user works on the website to arrange the images into web albums and to add any textual information.
Although today's approach for storing images from a digital camera onto a web photo-sharing website and for creating web photo albums works reasonably well, two problems remain that hinder the mainstream adoption of web-based photo-sharing. One problem is that this approach requires the use of a PC, notebook computer, or PDA. While many digital camera users today have PC's, most of those users are early adopters of technology. There are many other consumers who would purchase a digital camera, but are reluctant to do so because they do not yet own a PC or are intimidated by them.
In an effort to address this problem, the assignee of the present application developed an approach to uploading images to the web that doesn't require the use of a PC. In this approach, an email software application is loaded into a digital camera capable of running software that allows the user to e-mail the images directly from the camera. The user simply connects his or her digital camera to a cellphone or modem, runs the e-mail application, and selects the desired images and the email recipients. The selected images are then sent to the recipients as e-mail attachments.
Although emailing photos directly from the camera allows users who do not own a PC to share images over the Internet, these users must still establish accounts with both an Internet service provider (ISP) and the photo-sharing website before being able to post their images. These accounts must also be set-up by PC users as well. For techno savvy users who use a PC to upload the images to the photo-sharing website, establishing the accounts may not be a bother, but even these users may not always have their PCs handy, such as when on vacation, for instance. And for non-PC users, establishing the accounts by entering account information on the digital camera itself may prove to be a cumbersome, if not a daunting, task.
Accordingly, what is needed is an improved method for uploading images from a digital camera to a photo-sharing website on the Internet. In order for online photo-sharing to become more mainstream, an approach that doesn't require a PC or PC expertise and that reduces complexity for the user is required. The present invention addresses such a need.